


When Do Telepaths Wear Gloves?

by pallasite



Series: Behind the Gloves [133]
Category: Babylon 5, Babylon 5 & Related Fandoms
Genre: Backstory, Canon Compliant, Essays, Fix-It, Gen, Psi Corps, Telepath War, Telepath culture, Worldbuilding, telepaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 05:15:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15901617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallasite/pseuds/pallasite
Summary: When do telepaths in the Corps wear gloves? What are the rules?(A short essay for new readers.)The prologue ofBehind the Glovesishere- please read!





	When Do Telepaths Wear Gloves?

**Author's Note:**

> What is this series? Where are the acknowledgements, table of contents and universe timelines? See [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10184558/chapters/22620590).
> 
> If you like _Behind the Gloves_ and would like to send me an email, I can be reached at counterintuitive at protonmail dot com. Do you have questions? Would you like to tell me what you like about this project? Email me!
> 
> I also have an [ask blog](https://behind-the-gloves.tumblr.com/), a [writing blog](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pallasite-writes), and a "P3 life" Tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/p3-life) with funny anecdotes. :)

For any and all who are confused about this:

Telepaths in the Corps get their gloves when they graduate from the cadres to the Minor Academy at age thirteen (or later if they come from normal families and enter the Corps later).

There are strict rules about what kinds of gloves are acceptable (see my post [here](https://behind-the-gloves.tumblr.com/post/174011156258/gloves)).

Telepaths must wear gloves when out of the home, with few exceptions. To do otherwise is actually _against Earth Alliance law_ \- telepaths must be visually distinguished from normals by gloves and a Psi insignia badge. At the time of the show, this has been universal law across the EA for a hundred years, and in many countries, for several generations more.

Telepaths don’t have to wear gloves when “in private,” either in their own home in the homes of those close to them. Talia not wearing gloves in Ivanova’s apartment, even without more shown, indicates there’s something going on there.

It’s expected that telepaths don’t wear gloves in their own homes. So when in Season 5 we see Bester in his own apartment, he has one glove off (he’d take off the other, but it’s kinda hard for him given his challenges with that hand). That doesn’t mean he and Lauren are in a sexual relationship (they’re not).

But to leave the house without gloves is unheard of in the Corps - Bester literally has nightmares about being out without his gloves, because in telepath culture this is going outside naked.

Rogue telepaths don’t wear gloves, because well, they’re rogues. Most are also trying to pass for normals.

Telepaths sometimes take off a glove when doing a deep scan, to have skin contact - this is brief and considered an acceptable exception (assuming of course the scan itself is legal). It’s not that telepaths can’t do a deep scan with gloves on - it’s psychological. Gloves are a “barrier” between “self” and “world,” between “public” and “private.” Skin contact thus can facilitate a deep scan.

This is what they were trying to show (but failing to explain) in the scene where Bester takes off one glove and touches the wall to talk to Byron on the other side - it’s a gesture of intimacy. He looks at Byron as his son, or the closest thing he’s ever had to one.

After the war, the “new rules” preventing from telepaths from wearing gloves, though they may have felt liberating to those raised outside the Corps, had the opposite effect on those raised in the Corps - the “new rules” humiliated telepaths _en masse_ , forcing them as a condition of participation in society to expose themselves in public, go everywhere naked, and let strangers casually touch their hands. It was also tremendously infantilizing, as only children go bare-handed.

This was, of course, the entire point.


End file.
